Carrara 9...DAZ, I'm begging you.

OK, so 8.5 is apparently nearing release. That means development on 9 will start in earnest, and I look forward to it.

DAZ, please think for a moment about what you potentially have with Carrara. It is a powerful program that has one huge advantage over some of its "superiors"...the ability to use content easily.

Just imagine what Carrara would be like with some added features. With an improved render engine (or the ability to use 2rd party engines like Lux), an updated particle system (current one is old, but not bad), a dynamic hair system that once again WORKS, the ability to "clothify" content clothing, and a few other things and Carrara could rival the best programs out there. I know adding these things isn't simple, but that's why you need to devote some more resources to Carrara.

I know, Carrara IS a great program, but it's aging. It NEEDS updates. The fact that it can use content easily should not be undersold. Imagine if you had a program with the power of Blender combined with Carrara's content use. The possibilities are great.

Of course, Blender has hundreds if not thousands of developers. Carrara has what, four? This is where DAZ's problem lies. The vision for Carrara's future seems narrow.

I understand that DAZ doesn't make their money from software...they make it from content. Still, how much more content would you sell if Carrara suddenly became a major production-quality suite?

PLEASE DAZ, I beg you...give Carrara some love. Make it the great program it has the potential to be.

I agree totally, Kodiak!... a lot of professional illustrators use carrara, for different reasons.. One of mine is the ability of carrara to handle heavy zbrush meshes, which seems to me unique... well, regards toi the other soft I've tried...
but another modern render engine is necessary... actually, the render is too old, for professional use, and a lot of times I'm working in modo or cine4d, just because rendering glasses, or so on, is "under level" in C... it's a pity, as all the program is really fine! and, contrary to a lot of posts here, I found it reasonnably stable, not so buggy... Not more than others, sure!

I used to think Carrara's render engine was old, too, but what I now think is the problem are the presets or defaults are old. Sure, some more speed tweaks on reflections (soft reflections) would be very helpful, but I think if we could have some really nice presets out of the box it would be thought of much better. Tim Payne's light sets would be a great addition (though I already own them - they would simplify things for others). I've seen some promo renders done in Carrara that are better than most of what I see out of other render engines - work by 3D Celebrity and Dimension Theory specifically. And I've read here and over on the OTOY site that the guys working on the Octane Render engine plugin for DAZ Studio want to make one for Carrara after they get that one out. And Wendy seems to be always finding ways of getting Carrara work into other programs so it's not impossible.

People make a big deal out of some of the effects you can do in Blender like fire... but if you follow all the steps, it's not really that easy. Some new pre-sets and maybe some tweaks and more documentation on the Carrara particle generator and we could do similar things. I think it takes more than a couple of people throwing up WIP videos which is most of what I find for Carrara. Age of Armour is an exception and he has a couple YouTube videos showing Carrara particles in action and it looks good. We don't have all the people working on Blender, but just a little more attention to detail might be just what we need. It will be a long time before DAZ/Poser content can easily and readily work in other programs. The guy trying to get Poser content into Blender keeps running into problems and he's been at it for a couple years now. So DAZ should consider that ease of content use in Carrara is a very big deal.

As I've said before DAZ is spending so much time trying to make carrara more studio like, that carrara has fallen way behind the rest of the pack when it comes to features.
I've also said if I wanted to be using studio, I would be.

I am glad someone posted about this. I am frustrated with Carrara and it's slow development cycle and bugs. I think the bugs are my most pet peeves atm because I am always finding them. I have given up on the bug tracker and such. I just dont see Daz that interested in making Carrara the best it could be. Introduce a new feature and break something else and the time it takes to fix that feature takes forever or not at all.

So I downloaded some demos of of 3d packages and Cinema 4d has impressed me a lot for its easy of use. It reminds me of Carrara in many ways. Yes it is $3600.00 but I can get it for edu discount if I want. That is $280 I have saved up to make this purchased. Money that would go to Daz if they would just kill the bug, but I have lost all faith that Daz will do more with Carrara than the bare minimum after release.

For me thought I probably will not wait for 8.5 to make up my mind, I really like C4D and it is a lot like Carrara in many respects and it is rock solid. When I get on to my computer to make whatever I have decided to learn that day I dont want to sit and fight the software. I just want it to work without the hassle. The biggest drawback is content. It would be nice to be able to use all the content I have inside C4D. I have heard of Interposer, I will see how that goes.

Oh that is good news, the maker of Interposer seems to be making a plugin for Genesis. Way cool.

Well here we are, 8 months of C8.5 nearing completion. I've come to the conclusion the only features we will get in carrara by asking is if they are features already in studio.

I just don't get why DAZ is spending all it's carrara developmental time trying to turn carrara in to studio when DAZ already has studio and carrara needs some serious updating to catch up with the rest of the apps of it's kind. Every year carrara just falls further behind the rest of the pack. DAZ is pretty well killing it for the market it was designed for.

I would guess, Stan, that DAZ wants to make Carrara more user friendly for Studio users so they can get them to upgrade. It's easier to market to people you already have coming here than to spend a fortune to entice people who don't know to come to this site. I don't how many times I've seen Studio users post that they find Carrara hard to figure out. So it would make sense that they want to make it more tempting for Studio users. And we still have no idea what they've been planning for C9. But gnashing teeth and getting all upset does nothing to convince possible Carraraists to try it. It just makes it look like a bad thing to do so Carrara is tried less and less. Look at all the crap and negativity that went on with Poser folks when Genesis came out. Now that there's a good importer, some are coming back. But the negativity sure convinced a lot of people to leave here. I'm convinced the same thing has happened to Carrara. And lack of sales when they come out with a new version will do nothing to help our cause.

I can live without animated hair (been living without it all this time, and if the offending exposed backfaces are extruded and the polygons filled in, the backfaces are "covered" and the hair sims normally, but I assume that kills dynamic hair for any future cloth sim).

But the transparency issue I cannot work around. I would need to rotoscope and mask EVERY FRAME of an animation where a figure used a transparency shader (eye lenses, hair prop, clothing...). In the case of a hair prop this is simply not possible.

I hate to be the broken record but no amount of new features is going to make Carrara useable for animations until some of these bugs get fixed...

Yeah, as far as I can tell, a cloth sim requires a model that is single-sided.... This will always destroy a hair sim. The hair sim bug was introduced in C8 I believe. Maybe the hair sim could be calculated first before any dynamic cloth is added.... the cloth sim maybe could be done in another program and imported as MDD or sequential OBJ...

I would guess, Stan, that DAZ wants to make Carrara more user friendly for Studio users so they can get them to upgrade. It's easier to market to people you already have coming here than to spend a fortune to entice people who don't know to come to this site. I don't how many times I've seen Studio users post that they find Carrara hard to figure out. So it would make sense that they want to make it more tempting for Studio users. And we still have no idea what they've been planning for C9. But gnashing teeth and getting all upset does nothing to convince possible Carraraists to try it. It just makes it look like a bad thing to do so Carrara is tried less and less. Look at all the crap and negativity that went on with Poser folks when Genesis came out. Now that there's a good importer, some are coming back. But the negativity sure convinced a lot of people to leave here. I'm convinced the same thing has happened to Carrara. And lack of sales when they come out with a new version will do nothing to help our cause.

The only Carrara version I have used is the 8.5 beta. I find it much easier to use than Bryce and Hexagon, possibly even easier than Studio. Since I am a Studio user, Carrara is the next step for me.

I want Daz to take its time.
I'm not bothered by the slow development cycle because I don't really feel the need to update my software very often.
They just need to work out the bugs, nice and slow. Get it done and get it done right.
Then get out some documentation.

I'm still running C7Pro and until we get a final version of C8Pro, I'm sticking with C7 (and maybe will until I have to upgrade).
I'm convinced most people don't get the full use out of Carrara.

Stan is right, we really don't need to have Carrara to become more DS like. It is already DS like enough.

Kevin, spot on about the presets. We could use some updates there.

Daz just needs to slow down. Get more vendors making Carrara specific items. Since Daz makes most of its money on content and not software, that might be really helpful

I would guess, Stan, that DAZ wants to make Carrara more user friendly for Studio users so they can get them to upgrade. It's easier to market to people you already have coming here than to spend a fortune to entice people who don't know to come to this site. I don't how many times I've seen Studio users post that they find Carrara hard to figure out. So it would make sense that they want to make it more tempting for Studio users. And we still have no idea what they've been planning for C9. But gnashing teeth and getting all upset does nothing to convince possible Carraraists to try it. It just makes it look like a bad thing to do so Carrara is tried less and less. Look at all the crap and negativity that went on with Poser folks when Genesis came out. Now that there's a good importer, some are coming back. But the negativity sure convinced a lot of people to leave here. I'm convinced the same thing has happened to Carrara. And lack of sales when they come out with a new version will do nothing to help our cause.

The only Carrara version I have used is the 8.5 beta. I find it much easier to use than Bryce and Hexagon, possibly even easier than Studio. Since I am a Studio user, Carrara is the next step for me.

I hear that. Having paid for Carrara 8 Pro and slowly getting used it, I think it's actually easier in a lot of ways than Studio.

I think for me, the thing that the OP mentioned that I would love to see is a 3rd party render engine, but even so, I love the built in one.

I'm currently using 8.5 Pro but probably too much a noob to be finding the bugs. I'm not hitting any fancy features yet.

I'm not sure what I'm missing here but C8.5 pro works most of the time for me. The occasional bug re: object editing means I have to save regularly or risk wasted time.

I spend most of my time trying to simplify (to speed up rendering and load/save times) due to the large file sizes I tend to work with (many many replicated objects). So perhaps I don't go into the dark corners of the clever stuff as much as some on this message board.

One positive note for C7 users holding on to that old version - C8 renders much quicker on anything complex. I would upgrade. As the blurb says in some cases twice as fast - I can testify to that.

I am an animator and I'm grateful for this speed increase. With any luck some more speed tweaks in C9 would make life easier still.

So I downloaded some demos of of 3d packages and Cinema 4d has impressed me a lot for its easy of use. It reminds me of Carrara in many ways. Yes it is $3600.00
[..]
For me thought I probably will not wait for 8.5 to make up my mind, I really like C4D and it is a lot like Carrara in many respects and it is rock solid. When I get on to my computer to make whatever I have decided to learn that day I dont want to sit and fight the software. I just want it to work without the hassle. The biggest drawback is content. It would be nice to be able to use all the content I have inside C4D. I have heard of Interposer, I will see how that goes.

Hi Muphasa :)
FWIW, Cinema 4D costs about $5100 here in Norway, if that is any comfort to you..
Nevertheless, I purchased it in May. I also purchased modo 601. So I spent very much money to "avoid" Carrara, which I have used 4 years now. First, about modo, it certainly is a superb tool for professional modelers, if you can live with a hopelessly unwieldy user interface. But for me it was a mistake, I want to sell my modo license..
Cinema 4D on the other hand, was like entering a totally new world. The user interface is outstanding, it can't get better than that. You can do a lot in C4D, if you want flying logos, exploding text, animated spheres, cubes etc etc - it has it all. Adjusting movement paths is a joy, compared to the Carrara hassles and "specialties". Most important - it is easy to jump back and forth between keypoints, even in complex animations. In Carrara, this becomes a nightmare if you have animation clips involved.

But - there is a BIG SHORTCOMING in Cinema 4D. Animated characters. If you want to do that, you probably need another software, like Carrara :D. Interposer might help you, I have tested it, and don't like it. Cinema 4D + Interposer?? Well, Carrara is better. In general, for hobbyists and makers of non-profit multimedia like me, Carrara would be the perfect choice. What made me cough up all that money for Cinema 4D was my frustration regarding the super-awkward user interface in Carrara. I could spend hours tweaking and adjusting even the smallest parts of an animation, because "strange" things happened, and I had to go through a 17-step tedious process of clicking, clicking and clicking again, just to get hold of the same property I had tweaked 30 seconds ago. In Cinema 4D, I can open all kinds of property windows (panels) and tuck them away on another screen, and have them there, at hand, whenever I need them. And my customized workplace can of course be stored.

So what do I have now? I have Carrara for character animations and shudder every time I must use it because of the user interface. And I have Cinema 4D which is a joy to use, for everything 3D except character animation. And I have modo 601 collecting dust in the corner..
Maya is perhaps what I need - but I'll have to wait to win in LOTTO..
There is yet another option - Carrara with an overhauled user interface.. I also have daz Studio, but the user interface is horrible to say the least, only behind the worst possible user interfaces there is - Reallusion iClone and CrazyTalk.

So I downloaded some demos of of 3d packages and Cinema 4d has impressed me a lot for its easy of use. It reminds me of Carrara in many ways. Yes it is $3600.00
[..]
For me thought I probably will not wait for 8.5 to make up my mind, I really like C4D and it is a lot like Carrara in many respects and it is rock solid. When I get on to my computer to make whatever I have decided to learn that day I dont want to sit and fight the software. I just want it to work without the hassle. The biggest drawback is content. It would be nice to be able to use all the content I have inside C4D. I have heard of Interposer, I will see how that goes.

Hi Muphasa :)
FWIW, Cinema 4D costs about $5100 here in Norway, if that is any comfort to you..
Nevertheless, I purchased it in May. I also purchased modo 601. So I spent very much money to "avoid" Carrara, which I have used 4 years now. First, about modo, it certainly is a superb tool for professional modelers, if you can live with a hopelessly unwieldy user interface. But for me it was a mistake, I want to sell my modo license..
Cinema 4D on the other hand, was like entering a totally new world. The user interface is outstanding, it can't get better than that. You can do a lot in C4D, if you want flying logos, exploding text, animated spheres, cubes etc etc - it has it all. Adjusting movement paths is a joy, compared to the Carrara hassles and "specialties". Most important - it is easy to jump back and forth between keypoints, even in complex animations. In Carrara, this becomes a nightmare if you have animation clips involved.

But - there is a BIG SHORTCOMING in Cinema 4D. Animated characters. If you want to do that, you probably need another software, like Carrara :D. Interposer might help you, I have tested it, and don't like it. Cinema 4D + Interposer?? Well, Carrara is better. In general, for hobbyists and makers of non-profit multimedia like me, Carrara would be the perfect choice. What made me cough up all that money for Cinema 4D was my frustration regarding the super-awkward user interface in Carrara. I could spend hours tweaking and adjusting even the smallest parts of an animation, because "strange" things happened, and I had to go through a 17-step tedious process of clicking, clicking and clicking again, just to get hold of the same property I had tweaked 30 seconds ago. In Cinema 4D, I can open all kinds of property windows (panels) and tuck them away on another screen, and have them there, at hand, whenever I need them. And my customized workplace can of course be stored.

So what do I have now? I have Carrara for character animations and shudder every time I must use it because of the user interface. And I have Cinema 4D which is a joy to use, for everything 3D except character animation. And I have modo 601 collecting dust in the corner..
Maya is perhaps what I need - but I'll have to wait to win in LOTTO..
There is yet another option - Carrara with an overhauled user interface.. I also have daz Studio, but the user interface is horrible to say the least, only behind the worst possible user interfaces there is - Reallusion iClone and CrazyTalk.

I rather would like Daz to take its time developing a working and bug-free Carrara.

Yep, certain features like liquids and dynamic cloth objects (like in Blender) would be extremely cool.
Or realistic skies and atmospheres like in Vue... Though, it's better when existing bugs get fixed first.

What good are new features, when you can't do much, because the program keeps crashing or your work gets messed up because something doesn't work properly.

Besides, I have to wonder why so many people think Carrara is so hard to figure out? I went from Poser to Carrara, a real leap of fait, and it was an extremely good experience.
I was surprised how easy Carrara was in comparison to Poser. Less restrictive and more flexible.
Honestly, I do not regret moving to Carrara just one second. I can do so many things with it, that weren't possible in Poser or DazStudio. Even posing is easier much easier und more flexible.

Besides, I have to wonder why so many people think Carrara is so hard to figure out?

I myself found Carrara easy to understand. And it indeed has some very nice features. The assembly room is almost perfect, IMO.
Mostly, it is the timeline that bugs me. And mostly, there are two major issues I have with Carrara:

1) When you add a motion clip to the project, carrara will stop on each and every keyframe when invoking "next keyframe" and "previous keyframe", even if the selected object in question only has a couple of keyframes. And even when this clip is not used at all, its mere precence creates this "feature".

2) Editing certain properties, in the modeling room, in the assembly room, on the timeline - you have to open the same dialog box and click your way to the property you want to change. Each and every time. It does not remember its previous size (if it is resizable at all), it does not remember ist previous position, it does not remember at what node in what branch in what tree you adjusted something on your last visit.

These two issues would be simple to correct. And it would make Carrara much more user friendly.
I made my last Carrara animation i April, I hope it will not be my last, but currently it is. An mainly because of the two items mentioned above, I just spent too much time because of these.

I myself found Carrara easy to understand. And it indeed has some very nice features. The assembly room is almost perfect, IMO.
Mostly, it is the timeline that bugs me. And mostly, there are two major issues I have with Carrara:

1) When you add a motion clip to the project, carrara will stop on each and every keyframe when invoking "next keyframe" and "previous keyframe", even if the selected object in question only has a couple of keyframes. And even when this clip is not used at all, its mere precence creates this "feature".

2) Editing certain properties, in the modeling room, in the assembly room, on the timeline - you have to open the same dialog box and click your way to the property you want to change. Each and every time. It does not remember its previous size (if it is resizable at all), it does not remember ist previous position, it does not remember at what node in what branch in what tree you adjusted something on your last visit.

These two issues would be simple to correct. And it would make Carrara much more user friendly.
I made my last Carrara animation i April, I hope it will not be my last, but currently it is. An mainly because of the two items mentioned above, I just spent too much time because of these.

-Ingvar

That sounds really time consuming. I never created animated clips, because I always dreaded what you wrote about.

That reminds me of another Feature that should be implemented or perfected in Carrara, would be a Feature that allows me to edit a particular shader attribute of multiple shaders within one object at once.

Personally, I truly agree with the initial message Kodiak is asking.
I also enjoy the fact that the devs are being given the time to sort out the new Genesis thing. I may or may not end up using Genesis - I guess it all depends on how efficiently it loads/saves, etc., in the end. But I believe that the entire creation of Genesis is genius and am glad to see the company recognizing Carrara in their future (or they would probably have had to drop it in favor of DS). The development of this 8.5 update has been quite amazing in many ways that (I think) should end up making Carrara a better experience for everyone using it.

I keep finding that, stuff that would absolutely bum me out before, has become resolved throughout this beta. Little things - but noticeably better. My S4 injections are now working on the older main character. There was a work-around in the old forum, but it required that I rebuild her again from V4 scratch - now I won't have to do that. When I save in the director camera, it opens in the directors camera - little things - in addition to all of the truly grand improvements they've made. I'd not last a day in C7 now without jumping right back here! :)

I agree that with some well thought out improvements made in just the right spots, Carrara is a true contender - especially for the amateur film-makers out there. But I'd also like to point out that, the developers working on this bad-boy suite of tools are doing a stupendous job of improving the software in a LOT more ways than their original intentions of adding Genesis to its ease-of-content implementation and that the jump from 7.2 to 8 was a very needed re-write to keep Carrara from having to be swept under the ol' permanent rug of incompatibility! (Not to rip on C7 Pro - Loved that too!)

I agree that with some well thought out improvements made in just the right spots, Carrara is a true contender - especially for the amateur film-makers out there.

This is what I want to use it for. With affordable and effective motion capture solutions becoming available (iPisoft to mention one), I think we're going to start seeing a lot more independent 3D movies in the near future. With Carrara's ability to use content, it's a perfect tool for such projects.

Ok after playing with C4 this past week, I really love that software. It is powerful and easy to use. I did crash on me once but I cant remember what i was doing but it has an automated crash reporter and I sent it in. I like that great feature.

Now I am more convinced more than ever that if Carrara was rock solid like C4D in performance, it would be a powerhouse but as it stands I cant get the smallest of animations to render consistently as expected. Yes you can get some great results out of Carrara.

For example. I was trying to do a simple flyby of a tron car and exporting a depth map plus some others to see how useful they would be in Aftereffects. I first started out in C7 and found a bug where some of the extra passes would not export. I thought to try C8.5 and to my surprise the multi-pass bug I was encountering in C7 was fixed.

So now I am in C8.5 and render my file and all seems well. I exported my avi's out and went into aftereffects. I noticed that the depth pass had odd frames rendered in the avi. Some of the frames would not have the same depth scale in them. This would show up as one frame having a different gray tone to the image than the previous frame and the frame after it. But the two surrounding frames would be consistent with each other. I am sorry but i was frustrated and deleted the project and started over. The next problem was that some of the depth map frames had no depth at all.

see pic of all black tron car.

I have included a depth pass from carrara when it is rendered correctly and a depth pass with C4D. The C4D is much better quality wise but Carrara is not too far behind. I mean it is still usable.

Carrara is in need of some polish. Kick out the bugs and bring other features up to date. The Multi pass render over all needs some polish like better/smoother image export and more predictable depth export. In C4D as other software package you can control the depth scale by modifying a setting on the render camera.

Muphasa,
Carrara and Cinema 4D cannot really be compared. Look at the price tag. They are two very different creatures. I myself have never had any of the issues you mention. My Carraras have been very solid, made very nice renderings. I have done alpha renders, match moving animations, using SynthEyes which exports to Carrara, physics and charcter animations.
For me - I am talking about what I need - i need just a few things improved regarding the user interface. The aforementioned animation clip bug fixed, and a more "modern" use of dialog boxes etc. Worth to mention support for the right mouse button, which now is almost totally absent. I do not expect though, and do not think it is feasible, to make Cararra look like X application and change totally.

Carrara is very good as it is. Genesis support is just interesting, and I am looking forward to the release of version 8.5. The renderings that Carrara make are more than good enough for my films and animations. I do the last polishing in After Effects in any case.

For me, and again I talk about my needs, small improvements would remove my main issue with Cararra: Currently it is too time consuming to make an animation because of the (in my opinion) awkward timeline.

As I understand it, DEPTH PASS will change depending on what is in the scene.... It is not a global function based on distance from the camera. Instead it is literally all the objects in the scene ( maybe in the field of view? ) with the closest to farthest defining the gradient....

To have a moving object that is changing depth, you would need a static object (like a plane) that is larger than any action in your scene... in otherwords, this large object would set the range of depth in your scene while the animated object is free to move within that range...

Maybe I am wrong... I have only used depth pass in stills, not animations.